


The Purple Chip

by CinnamonLily



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bobby Finstock isn't blind, F/M, Future Fic, Kitsune Kira Yukimura, M/M, Married Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Meet-Cute, POV Bobby Finstock, Protective Peter Hale, Recovering Alcoholic, Stiles Stilinski is still a little shit, Tattoo Artist Kira Yukimura, in any way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonLily/pseuds/CinnamonLily
Summary: Bobby lifted his head to cross the street and saw the tattoo shop again.“Fox of Nine Tails,” he mouthed the words on the window. He must’ve walked past the shop a hundred times by now. Back and forth on his way to AA meetings.Sighing, he stopped by the windows. A charming chalkboard sign by the door proclaimed "Walk-ins welcome!" There was a very faint, very small penis drawn on the edge of the board, and something about it made Bobby guffaw loudly.
Relationships: Bobby Finstock/Kira Yukimura, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 16
Kudos: 269





	The Purple Chip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mia6363](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia6363/gifts).



> I blame the plot bunnies. It is Easter after all. For Mia. Obviously.

* * *

Bobby stood on the stairs leading up from the church basement and flipped his brand new purple chip in his fingers.

“You going to do anything special to commemorate the occasion?” Nat, his sponsor asked as she dug her vape from her purse of holding.

Bobby grunted. Did people commemorate sobriety? In other ways than the chips? Maybe. At least he didn’t want to go celebrate with a drink, eh?

“I’ve no idea,” he finally said after remaining silent for a bit too long for it to be comfortable. Nat didn’t care, she’d gotten used to him in the last six months since the death of his first local sponsor.

“Eh, it’ll come to you.” She clapped his shoulder, then jogged up the stairs surrounded by a billowing steam cloud. “See you on Thursday?”

“Yeah.” He ambled up to the street and then started towards his crappy little apartment above the hardware store.

He didn’t have a car. Hadn’t gotten a new one when he’d crashed the last one two years ago. When he’d gotten out of the hospital, he’d moved away from the shambles that were his so-called life back in Redding.

Once, he’d had a proper life, more or less. He’d been a teacher. Now, well, now he got by with unemployment and sat in the corner of the town library more days than not. Beat the bar stool he’d been sitting on in Redding for sure.

Bobby lifted his head to cross the street and saw the tattoo shop again.

 _“Fox of Nine Tails,”_ he mouthed the words on the window. He must’ve walked past the shop a hundred times by now. Back and forth on his way to AA meetings.

Sighing, he stopped by the windows. A charming chalkboard sign by the door proclaimed _Walk-ins welcome!_ There was a very faint, very small penis drawn on the edge of the board, and something about it made Bobby guffaw loudly.

“It’s the dick, isn’t it?” A voice asked behind him.

Bobby turned around and saw—“Stilinski?”

“Coach Finstock?” The kid looked as surprised as Bobby felt.

“Eh, just… just Bobby, these days.” He fidgeted with a rush of discomfort.

“Oh, okay,” he said, then added, “I’m surprised you remembered my name.”

Ah, the old “I don’t even care enough to remember your name” trick. Bobby had played it a lot.

“Something starting with M and a lot of consonants. You went by something else though,” he said thoughtfully.

This time the kid winced. “Yeah, still go by Stiles.”

 _Stiles_ , right. He’d been an interesting one among the sea of stupidity and hormones. Well, if you didn’t count the weirdly specific obsession with circumcision.

“You coming in?” Stiles asked, gripping the handle to the Fox.

“You work here?” Bobby blurted out, sounding more surprised than he probably should’ve.

“Nah, but my husband co-owns the place.”

Ah, well that might’ve explained the aforementioned obsession, Bobby thought and grinned a little without meaning to. Stiles looked almost startled at his expression, then smiled.

“I just got this today,” he said in lieu of answering, showing Stiles the chip he’d been hiding in his palm the whole time.

Stiles nodded, still smiling. “My dad has that, and bunch of the bronze ones now.”

The bronze was the one-year chip, and then you got one more for each milestone after that. Something fell off Bobby’s shoulders at the lack of judgment and even acceptance in Stiles’s expression.

“Come on,” Stiles said, and pulled the door open, ushering Bobby inside.

The shop was bigger than it looked from the outside. There was art on the walls and the black and white checkered floor enhanced the artistic feel of the space somehow. Bobby thought it should’ve felt chaotic, but somehow it… settled him? All the colors and the sounds fit in together like weird puzzle pieces and he relaxed further.

Stiles led him to the front counter, then slammed his palm against the bell there. “Anyone home?” he called loudly.

The sound of a tattoo machine stopped somewhere and a female voice called out “Peter’s out getting coffees” before the buzzing started again.

“That’s Kira, she and Peter own the place together.”

“Oh.”

Stiles plopped down on a nearby couch and Bobby walked closer to the frames of flash art, he thought it was called.

“Did you teach long after we left town?” Stiles asked in a gently curious tone, like he was actually interested in the answer.

“Three years, the last one… I don’t remember much of it. I got fired.” Bobby could talk about it now.

“Well, when your favorite class leaves, what can you do, eh?” Stiles grinned at him, making him huff.

“Yeah. I suppose.” Bobby tried to remember how small talk worked. “What have you been up to, since?”

“Oh, I went to college in Berkeley, Peter, my husband, you probably remember Peter Hale, right?” At Bobby’s nod, Stiles continued on. “He came with me, and eventually, once I’d graduated, we took a vacation here in Napa. One of Peter’s friends owns a winery. Anyway, we didn’t have plans, really, so when we saw that Kira needed a business partner, Peter said why not.”

“Ah, so Hale’s not a tattoo artist then?”

“No, he runs the shop and leaves the tattooing to Kira and the employees.”

“Ah….” Bobby turned back to the wall, looking at the pieces with more thought now. “My sponsor said I should commemorate the occasion.”

Stiles hummed on the couch. “I guess a tattoo is as good way as any other. Be warned though, you get hooked to them.”

Bobby snorted. “I bet they’re still safer than most addictions.”

“Oh totally.” Then he frowned thoughtfully. “Why Napa?” he asked, and the frown made sense.

Bobby shrugged. “I never liked wine. The scenery is nice though.”

The door opened and Peter Hale walked in. The man looked… sane, for one. Which was sort of nice to see.

“Bobby Finstock as I live and breathe,” Hale said dramatically, grinning at him. “I’d shake your hand if I didn’t have mine full.”

“Appreciate the thought,” Bobby replied, smiling a bit. “Nice to see you doing better.”

Peter hummed, tilted his head, looked at Bobby from head to toe and then said, “Yes, and you as well, it seems.”

Ah, one of the observant ones. No wonder Stiles had married the guy.

“You could say that.”

“Stiles, did you go stalking your favorite teacher?” Peter asked, walking to the counter to deposit his coffees and whatever was in the paper bags.

“No, I just bumped into him outside.” Stiles had the nerve to look affronted which was kind of funny, knowing what the kid had been up to at sixteen. He might’ve been what, twenty-six now? Something like that, Bobby wasn’t sure. Still.

Wait. _Favorite teacher?_

Suddenly, Bobby felt a bit choked up in a very uncomfortable way. He listened to the duo bicker and went to grab a portfolio off the low coffee table, then sat on the couch to take a closer look.

The folder was thick, and the cover had an illustration of a fox on top with the name Kira in beautiful script underneath.

The art inside was stunning. For the first time in years, Bobby felt awestruck, as he flipped page after page of different kinds of fairytale creatures, nature scenes, plants and flowers, all sorts of things he’d never thought someone would want on their skin permanently.

The works of this Kira person belonged in a museum, he decided.

He vaguely registered the door opening and closing when someone left, and the chatter between Stiles and his husband getting fainter in the back of the shop somewhere. Then suddenly a dainty hand with a tissue between the fingers appeared in Bobby’s field of vision.

“Here,” she said, and when Bobby took the tissue, he realized he was crying. Had been crying, for a while, it felt like.

He dabbed at his cheeks and blew his nose, then grimaced with disgust. He was a mess.

And then, then he looked up and saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

She was smiling at him, her expression open and her dark eyes kind and just… his heart lurched in his chest in an unfamiliar way that wasn’t completely unwelcome.

“I’m Kira.”

“B-Bobby,” he managed. Then he tore his gaze away from her and flipped back a few pages. “This all, it’s… _incredible._ ”

She sat next to him and leaned closer to turn the page. Her scent, something vaguely floral but not in that obnoxious way seemed to envelop him. There was something wild in her, an undercurrent Bobby could recognize.

He looked at the window, then the folder, then at her. “Wait, _you’re_ the fox,” he said, and she jerked back as if he’d struck her.

Before she could say anything, Peter Hale marched to the front looking murderous.

“What happened?” he growled.

“H-he knows,” Kira stuttered, leaning away from Bobby, clearly about to bolt.

Peter’s eyes flashed red quickly enough that Bobby would’ve thought it trick of the eye if he hadn’t known better.

“Sorry, Alpha Hale,” he said automatically, tugging at the strings of old memories and knowledge in his mind that would keep him on top of the situation. “I didn’t mean to startle anyone, I just—”

“You know,” Stiles said slowly. Then he started to laugh. “Of course you fucking know.”

Peter glared at Stiles and then relaxed a little.

“I lived in Beacon Hills for fifteen years, how could I _not_ know?” Bobby asked, honestly so over with the whole supernatural thing, except… “I’m sorry I startled you. I didn’t mean to.”

Kira straightened her pose, then put her hand on his shoulder and smiled beautifully. “It’s okay, it took me by surprise, that’s all. Was there any piece you particularly liked?” she asked, leaning fully into his space again without an ounce of the hesitance or even disgust Bobby associated with women her age when it came to his useless old carcass.

“Uh, I liked your flowers,” he said, then dug out the chip from his pocket. “Do you have ink in this shade of purple?”

She took the chip, thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Then I’d like a flower, any flower, of that color.” He realized that she probably had a reservation system going on, and flushed red, ducking his head. “W-whenever you have time, that is. I don’t—”

“I was done for the day, but now I’m not.” She got to her feet, not as gracefully as he expected, instead reminding him just a bit of Stiles a decade ago. She blushed too, then held out her hand. “Come.”

He got up, put the portfolio back on the table, and engulfed her artist’s hand with his mitt. The contrast couldn’t have been more drastic.

He realized then that Stiles and Peter had vanished once more and felt grateful. They didn’t need to see him fumble around a pretty girl like he was a teenager.

As he sat down on the chair in her workspace, he automatically lifted a hand to smooth his hair a little, knowing it was a crow’s nest by now.

“Don’t,” Kira said, then smiled apologetically. “I mean… I like it like that.” Her cheeks hadn’t lost the pink color that turned a bit darker, then.

Slowly, Bobby put his hand on his lap, and smiled at her. “Okay.”

“Okay.” She smiled, then rolled her saddle chair closer to the ink bottles.

He watched as she compared the chip to the different purples and finally came up with one that was the closest.

“Do you have any preference for the flower?” she asked, then looked at him almost absently, her gaze sweeping his body in a way that was purely professional—thank fucking deity.

“No, whatever is fine. Same with the location. I don’t have other tattoos.”

She nodded slowly, then grabbed a sketchbook and doodled for a while. He watched her work, fascinated by her expressions and the way she scratched an idea and started anew, in matter of seconds sometimes.

Eventually she settled on something. She turned the page and drew it again, then showed him.

“How about this? A lilac flower? It would be darker of course than the real flower.”

The image was simple but breathtaking. After having seen her art he knew she could pull it off to every tiny detail. “Yes, please.”

“Since the color is significant to you, I’d like it to be somewhere you can see it yourself.” She took his hand and pushed up his sleeve. “I’d put it here,” she said quietly, tapping the inside of his arm, right above his wrist. “But it’s a flower.”

He frowned. Then he finally caught on. He smiled widely, the smile he knew freaked some people out but that made her beam back at him. “I don’t mind. It’s… it’s your art. I’d be proud to carry it in a visible spot.”

Her body flowed like water, leaning forward before she could catch herself. She looked like she wanted to kiss him, and that was… well, scary as fuck.

It must’ve shown on his face, as she pulled back quickly, looking chastised.

“I’m sor—”

“No, no, that’s… it’s not….” Bobby ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand up even more. Then he huffed and shook his head. “Scary,” he muttered. “so fucking scary. I….”

“Oh.” She smiled at him then. “Maybe later?” she asked hopefully.

A laugh burst out of him. He smiled again. “Yes, later.”


End file.
